D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Cadence]

If you go with the idea that they're actually nature spirits, maybe. At least dragonborn are entirely flesh and blood.

1e doesn't seem to have anything about them being spirits.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

1e doesn't seem to have anything about them being spirits.

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And even if they are . . . Elves were/(and still are) a core race.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have a theory about that data. Volo's guide came out late 2016. Depending on when they were polling for that 2017 data, it is no wonder that Goliath beat Half-Orc, Goliath was brand new to the game in a major release. I wouldn't be shocked to see most of the Volo races getting a big uptick. Which would also include the Full Orc

Also, since it added thirteen new races, there might have been some volatility. Did half-orcs recover in recent years? My gut says most likely.

As of 2019? No. The half-orc fell from 5.0% to 4.7% while the goliath fell from 4.5% to 3.9% Both basically got diluted. I don't know any more recent data than that.

It's worth remembering that when 4e was published they dropped two races out of the PHB to the PHB2. Gnomes were one and I remember people complaining; half-orcs were the other and I don't remember any objections. (4e also added two races to the PHB and dragonborn and tieflings aren't going anywhere) People want a meatball race - but few people want half-orcs in specific.

Finally, the data set I remember looking at earlier in this thread had a pretty standard pattern. If you weren't a human, half-elf, or elf, you performed terribly outside of the class associated with your ASI. I remember something like halflings having 1500 for rogue, but their next highest class was like 700 or less. Abysmally low. That should be changing now that Tasha's is making the rounds, and I am really curious what that does to these sort of rankings

800 for the bard, 551 for the monk. The gnome and half-orc were both also extremely centralised (with the half orc being more than 50% fighters or barbarians) and as I've said repeatedly gnomes and halflings between them make a full slot.

 

[Faolyn]

1e doesn't seem to have anything about them being spirits.

I meant with their actual mythology.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You know what I've noticed? This thread has a two-part title, but a lot more emphasis in the posts has gone to the "My Problems with Halflings" side and not nearly enough on the "How to Create Engaging Interesting Fantasy Races" side. Anyone have any ideas on that score? Because I think feelings vis a vis halflings have been thoroughly covered.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You know what I've noticed? This thread has a two-part title, but a lot more emphasis in the posts has gone to the "My Problems with Halflings" side and not nearly enough on the "How to Create Engaging Interesting Fantasy Races" side. Anyone have any ideas on that score? Because I think feelings vis a vis halflings have been thoroughly covered.

I think the 5E Oz route, with halflings being traders and merchants, is a good niche for them. None of the other main D&D races have that as their thing (outside of a certain group in Planescape) and it fits well with what's already established about halflings. It gives them a way to connect to other groups in D&D and also sets up scenarios where they would need adventurers, both inside and outside their community, to help protect them from bandits and raiders.

This isn't major surgery -- literally just insert the word "merchant" into their description in a few places, and we're all set.

Harder is fixing their terrible PHB artwork ...

 

[Don Durito]

You know what I've noticed? This thread has a two-part title, but a lot more emphasis in the posts has gone to the "My Problems with Halflings" side and not nearly enough on the "How to Create Engaging Interesting Fantasy Races" side. Anyone have any ideas on that score? Because I think feelings vis a vis halflings have been thoroughly covered.

The problem with this is: for what setting?

Tieflings only got established when they were created for the Planescape settting. Then they were recreated, along with Dragonborn, for the the default 4e setting.

Without a setting there's a sort of push/pull to D&D races. They want them to be detailed enough to be interesting, but vague enough to fit in anywhere and that way you end up with Goliaths who have potential and have just hung around for three editions now, but have never had anything done with them. This sort of thing is fine for GMs, who can slot them in wherever they want and reskin them lots of ways, but it's not all that great for player engagement.

Also don't make them furries. Anthropomorphic animals is just a really lazy way to make new content. Half the third party races out there are lion people, or wolf people or cat people or whatever. Just put some templates in the DMG for people who want to add one of these to their settings and have done. You might be able to do something interesting with these, but it requires a well-developed setting to flesh them out beyond the obvious - eg "Lion people are big proud warriors" - "Really? Who'd have guessed?"

 

[Don Durito]

I think the 5E Oz route, with halflings being traders and merchants, is a good niche for them. None of the other main D&D races have that as their thing (outside of a certain group in Planescape) and it fits well with what's already established about halflings. It gvies them a way to connect to other groups in D&D and also sets up scenarios where they would need adventurers, both inside and outside their community, to help protect them from bandits and raiders.

This isn't major surgery -- literally just insert the word "merchant" into their description in a few places, and we're all set.

Harder is fixing their terrible PHB artwork ...

Silk road Halflings

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You know what I've noticed? This thread has a two-part title, but a lot more emphasis in the posts has gone to the "My Problems with Halflings" side and not nearly enough on the "How to Create Engaging Interesting Fantasy Races" side. Anyone have any ideas on that score? Because I think feelings vis a vis halflings have been thoroughly covered.

Yeah, I agree. I detailed a bit in the OP what I think are good tools to make engaging and interesting fantasy races here:

They have a clear niche and purpose, are given in-depth and sensical lore-based reasons to exist, and are strongly rooted in the identity of the world.

I also listed some races that I feel do this fairly well (the two homebrew races of mine that I detailed in the OP, Warforged and Kalashtar, Thri-Kreen in Dark Sun, the Kryn Dynasty, etc). IMO, it's much more easy to point out races that don't do those things than it is to point out races that do and create races that do all those things. This is because of a few main reasons, but almost always boils down to what the world that they take place in is. Warforged wouldn't make much sense in Dragonlance or Dark Sun, but they do for Eberron. Does that make them a bad race (either objectively or subjectively)? No! Of course not! They're just not intended for that world.

So, once you get the setting down that you want to put a race in/have an idea for the world you want to create, you need to figure out how to give them lore reasons to exist (like Vecna creating the Vezyi, and Quori merging with humans to create Kalashtar), make sure they fill a niche in that world (like psionic bug people), make sure that they don't have too much overlap with another race (no Saurials if you have Lizardfolk, etc) and are rooted in its identity (Eberron isn't the same Eberron without Warforged, Kalashtar, or Dragonmarked Races, Wildemount is not Wildemount without the Kryn Dynasty, etc).

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I think warforged could merit a generic PHB foothold by opening up their description to also applying to animated statues, golems, and other such robot-adjacent fantasy staples.

My choice for the "Future PHB" roster would be...
1. Human
2. Elf
3. Dwarf
4. Halfling
5. Gnome
6. Orc
7. Warforged
8. Planetouched (genasi, tiefling, aasimir)
9. Dragonborn
10. Rules for half-X characters (like multiclassing)

Part of my ideal redesign is then rebalancing the choices so that they all are roughly comparable in benefits gained.